Archive for October, 2007

An unusually special day. No, it was not a holiday. It was a day when the lab was almost full. The competent reader must have understood that there must be an assignment submission deadline. Looking at such a lab, Prof Chopra had once remarked, “The lab has become a fish market.”. He had waited for a moment and then continued, “But it is still better than a desert.”.

Some students were busy with debugging, some with report writing, while some in copying. bhOndOO was irritated. That day, he had received minimum marks in Modelling and Simulation’s second assignment. He had seen students making fun of his marks. Already disappointed, when he entered the lab, he stumbled against a chair and fell down, hearing a loud laugh. He wanted to beat everyone, but seeing Shami, he kept silent. Moreover, he had to finish (and start) the assignment. But given a chance, he was ready to take revenge.

According to the Law of Silence Wave, a time arrived when the lab attained a pin-drop silence. Within five seconds, the silence was broken by a tune of Jhalak Dikhla Ja. Everyone started looking at the source of the sound. It was bhOndOO’s mobile. Some girls ignored, some made faces, while some remarked, “Utha na!”. BenJi shouted, “bhOndOO, pick up the phone yaar!”.

bhOndOO looked at BenJi, then picked up the mobile, saw “Home” displayed, and the conversation started.

“Hello.”.

“Hello Beta, I am Papa speaking.”.

bhOndOO kept silent for a second, and continued, “Yes, Papa.”.

“Your voice is not clear.”.

“Mobile signals do not reach inside the lab properly. Tell me, why did you call?”.

“Beta, don’t mind. But, Mehra Uncle just wanted you to meet his daughter once. I know you don’t want to get married to her. But it is only a few months and you would start earning. Moreover, it is a friendship of generations. We should not say no right away.”.

“Okay Papa. As you say.”.

“So, are you ready to meet the girl?”.

“Yes, Papa.”.

“Good Beta. That’s really nice. Is it possible for you to come here in Diwali? I know you have course work, but these things are also important.”.

“Okay Papa. I will come in Diwali.”.

“Oh! So nice of you. I will send you the railway tickets soon.”.

“Okay Papa.”.

“Beta, your voice seems very low. Is everything fine?”.

“Yes Papa. Don’t worry.”.

“Beta, your school friend Amol was asking for your mobile number. He is coming to Bangalore for job hunting and does not have a place to stay. Your mother knows that you don’t entertain him, and hence wants your consent before giving him the number. What do you say?”.

“It is okay Papa. You can give him my mobile number.”.

“Okay Beta. Your mother will talk to you in the evening. Take care of your health.”.

“Okay Papa. Bye.”.

“Bye.”.

bhOndOO disconnected, looked at the mobile, then looked around, and shouted, “Whose mobile is this?”.

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After listening to a religious talk by a lady on Astha channel who talked about “Going beyond…”, bhOndOO was very much inspired. He wished to go beyond his current academics and do something more, that would give him more satisfaction. He started thinking of possible options:

getting two degrees by the end of my tenure at IISc — too unrealistic.

topping in a course — I would have done that, but one mid-sem is already over and I know how I performed in it. Moreover, Gullu topped it.

doing a job along with the courses — a bit too much.

getting Infosys fellowship — hmmm, I can try that.

So bhOndOO decided to try for Infosys fellowship. To know about the details and criteria of the fellowship, he opened the CSA website and in the search text box, entered “infosys fellowship”, and pressed the button titled “Search CSA!”. He landed up with a 404 Not Found page and understood the meaning of the exclamation mark on the search button.

“Stupid! This is Computer Science department and we cannot even have a working search mechanism! This is ridiculous!”. He suddenly realized that he can implement a robust search for the department and can get the appreciation of many people. He felt great! He remembered another quote from a personality development course (bhOndOO has so far undergone nine such courses — including one in which he got the best student certificate), “Make it big.”. bhOndOO’s gray cells started working and bhOndOO hit upon the idea: How about recreating the whole CSA website?

bhOndOO was overjoyed. He calculated, “Next mid-term is after two weeks. I can work on the website for a week and study for another week. That sounds doable. I will get appreciation from students, faculty, and it will make me a hero of the department! Done.”.

After a week, he had developed a very nice looking website containing most of the information from the original site, but with different layout, different organization, and better clarity. He was very anxious to send a mail to Dr Ajay Chopra who was in charge of the CSA website. At 02:02 in the night, he sent a mail to Dr Chopra mentioning the link to the website he created in a subdirectory of his homepage. He went back to the hostel, fell asleep, and dreamt about the next day when his appreciation was to begin.

Next morning, after having a hurried bath, bhOndOO rushed to the department, came to the lab, logged in, opened pine, saw a reply from Dr Ajay Chopra, smiled, and pressed Enter. The mail read as below:

Dear bhOndOO:

You have really created a nice website. However, we have already given a contract to a firm named SurfZone to create a new website for the department. They have created a demo version at this link. Please go through it and if you have any suggestions, please let me know.